Patricia and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra will perform the world premiere of Michael Hersch’s Violin Concerto on November 5th.
Michael Hersch shares his thoughts on this new composition:
Violin Concerto (2015)
The violin has always held a special place for me. I have come back to the instrument more than any other during my life as a composer (even though I am a pianist). To write a work for Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra has been a tremendous honor. The concerto continues a series of works I’ve written in response to the death of a dear friend whose passing occurred now over five years ago. While time does often heal, or at least calm the immediacy of grief’s presence, it has not in this case. If anything, with the passage of time I miss her more and the sensation of a void remains acute. The concerto is in four movements. The first and last movements are brief – serving essentially as prelude and postlude. These movements are only several minutes each. The interior movements are longer – the second movement approximately 7 minutes, and the third movement some 14 minutes. While composing the second movement I thought often of a bronze sculpture by the Pennsylvania sculptor Christopher Cairns which he calls Stanchion. For some reason the figure kept coming to mind as I wrote that particular movement. During the writing of the third movement, fragments from Thomas Hardy’s poems A Commonplace Day and The Church and the Wedding provided inspiration:
—-
The day is turning ghost …
I part the fire-gnawed logs,
Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends
Upon the shining dogs;
Further and further from the nooks the twilights’s stride extends,
And beamless black impends …
And when the nights moan like the wailings
Of souls sore-tried,
The folk say who pass the church-palings
They hear inside
Strange sounds of anger and sadness
That cut the heart’s core,
And shaken words bitter to madness;
And then no more
(Thomas Hardy)